Tuesday, January 1, 2013

When news broke that Hillary Clinton had been hospitalized with a blood clot in an unspecified location and was being treated with blood thinners, it was widely reported that such treatment indicated the blood clot was likely in one of her legs, that blood thinners are rarely used to treat a clot in the brain that results from a concussion.

It's now being reported that the blood clot is on Hillary's brain.

NBC's Robert Bazell said the following in a news report before the location of the clot was made public:

"The problem is, concussions, when they lead to blood clots, the blood clots are not usually treated with blood thinners, as they say she's being treated... there may be more to this story that we don't know."

Here is a report from CBS New York after it was learned Hillary's clot was on her brain:

Clinton’s complication “certainly isn’t the most common thing to happen after a concussion” and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University’s stroke center.

The area where Clinton’s clot developed is “a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull – it’s how the blood gets back to the heart,” Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

This would seem to indicate that Hillary has a rare type of blood clot.